now, 32 years ago, everything is worse off. you look at affordability, the cost of everything from groceries, milk, bread, seasoning like adobo, gasoline prices have all gone. you take a look at the border. we have folks coming across the border illegally. folks bringing in illegal drugs, human trafficking, it is a problem and it is a main issue. my opponent has done little to help that situation. as a matter of fact their claim she has actually made it worse. my parents came from america to guatemala. in terms of an education for me and my siblings. give us the opportunity for better job. i do not want that dream to end with me. right now there are so many people struggling to make ends meet. i want to go to washington to work on a bipartisan basis to reduce reckless wasteful spending. i want to lower taxes.

i want people to have more money in their pockets. i want people to feel safer in their community. i want to fix broken washington. one of the most partisan members going to that and i want to be part of that solution. >> congresswoman hayes, you now have your opening statement and you also have 90 seconds. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here tonight he had i look forward to having a spirited debate as the moderator said about the issues that affect the people in this district cared about the things that you care about. he has right. the economy, affordability, the border. all of those are things that people want to talk about. i plan to tell you what i have done what i plan to do. i also look forward to hearing from my opponent. not like status quo but in what he has actually done because he also has a voting record as a state senator, as a connecticut state senator.

i would like for him to hear how he has made this state better. how key, what he has done to affect the people of this district and hopefully, actually , i believe that at the end of this debate that people will see that there is a clear contract between me and my opponent. i want this district where i've lived, raise my children, worked my whole life, worship, shopped, everything, this is a community that i am part of. i want this to be a community where everyone can prosper. not just a few people. not just the wealthy and well-connected, everyone. i have the record to prove that. he says he is bipartisan but he has nothing to show. he cannot point to any specific action. hopefully tonight that will come out and i look forward to a discussion. i look forward to sharing my work and what i have done. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. we appreciate both of your opening statements.

the first question tonight will go to you congresswoman hayes. >> thank you. i want to thank you both for agreeing in participating in this debate. congresswoman hayes, what you see as the three most important things in the district that you would like to address in the next two years. >> well, as i travel around the district whether ethnicities, suburbs, rural communities, there are some things everywhere one of the top issues is inflation we hear a lot about that. we talk about inflation it is not just the price of seasoning and gasoline. it is affordable housing. 36% of people's income goes to affordable housing. i brought money back to this district for affordable housing in different places around the district. to help people so that when they are deciding on their bills and what they have to pay, knowing

that a huge chunk is not going to their rent. part of our inflation conversation is about making sure people have living wages. i voted to increase the minimum wage. my son voted against that when he was a state senator. lowering the cost of prescription drugs and healthcare. that is something i've done time and time again. 129,000 people signed up for the affordable care act in just 2024 that is something that he does not support. i want to make sure that we are addressing all of those issues. i also support the vice presidents plan to go against corporations that are price gouging so that we can lower the price of groceries and things like that. that is a huge issue for me when we talk about inflation and affordability. i think that in this district a big issue for me will be passing a farm bill that protects our farmers. that provides crop insurance, that feeds our children. when you talk about bipartisanship i have a problem with some of my republican

colleagues because the bills that i sponsor and cosponsor are to feed children, public education. they don't want to sign onto things like that. protecting our democracy. january 6 should have been a nonstarter for everyone. it is a disqualifying factor. you should be able to agree with that. he said that he would not have voted for a january 6 commission those are things that i think feed into all the other issues that we will talk about. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. mr. logan, you now have one minute to reply. >> over and over again, are the complications for sure. affordability the big issue. directly spending in washington and the policies coming from washington that have resulted in government -induced inflation has caused the increase of all kinds of goods and services. the people in the district are suffering from.

take a look at energy costs and the cost of gasoline. the administration of washington , the first thing was killing the keystone pipeline. racing towards energy independence. my opponent supported washington in terms of their absolute war against american energy, american energy independence. i want them to be energy independent. i want to bring down the costs in a sustainable way. we must secure the southern border. we must fix washington. washington is broken. folks are tired of the partisanship that we have in washington. we can fix it. we need a new voice in washington. she has had six years to make a difference and she has not. >> right now we will move onto question two. two minutes. >> thank you very much. you have both talked already in

a short few minutes about the economy and jobs. i want to drill down a little bit more and talk about how you think things are right now. you both talked about families struggling and that is always the case. families are struggling with prices as you said, mr. logan. how do you thinks are right now? unemployment is near record lows hovering around 4%. jobs are the high sustainable number. wages have outpaced inflation of these for the last two years. and yet there is a lot of struggle. how would you characterize the economy and what do you think should happen differently? >> sure. for me and the people of the district statistics mean absolutely nothing. when you take a look at what the people in the district are suffering with high grocery prices, high gas prices, the cost of mortgages, rent going up , we have young people that do not have the ability to what i've been able to do with my family. my home, raise a family, the

cost of everything is going. jobs are going down. america's place in the world has been exponentially weekend. supported by my candidate, my opponent. we need to go in a different direction. it is time for us to really hone in on wasteful spending. it is time for us to reduce taxes. put more money in the pocket of folks. that will help our economy. we need to make sure that the government stops putting together these loaded programs that result in deficit spending. deficit spending is kicking the can down the road. it is not only hurting the folks in the district here right now, but shamefully it is hurting our children which we are seeing now because they cannot find good jobs here in connecticut. it is hard to do. we are not encouraging businesses to grow. i would argue that right now the economy is trending poorly over the long term.

we need a sustainable healthy economy. we do that with responsible spending. making sure we focus to make our community safer. we need to secure our borders. we have approximately 500,000 illegal guns entering our country every year. my opponent is supporting government programs to give legal counsel to illegal immigrants. my opponent is using your taxpayer dollars to bring illegal immigrants and send them to different parts of the country. that is a problem. that is wrong. we need to secure our borders. >> your time is up. thank you very much. we appreciate. congresswoman hayes, your rebuttal. >> talking about the cost-of-living and high prices, he does not bring up energy costs because when he had the opportunity to do something about one of the things that people in this district are talking about, he took a walk on

that boat is a state senator. i guess it was too hard for him to make a decision on that. what i would like to do in order to make sure we are addressing our economy is talk about jobs, unemployment. we have the lowest unemployment rate. the investments we made during the pandemic have helped the united states to recover faster than any developing nation in the world. some of the things that i worked on his job training programs. you cannot have a job without childcare, without making permanent child tax credit. taking care of labor so that when we are distributing some of these contracts for these infrastructure projects, $5 billion i came back to the state that we are paying fair wages and people have jobs that they can feed their families and live in this district. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. the next question will be going to you. it will be about crime. >> hello. crime has been a big issue in your last campaign.

mr. logan has brought it up again this year. in his campaign ads. he claims that you support an open southern border which led sin deadly drugs, guns and crime but the state office of policy and management faunal reports a short drop in all categories of crime in connecticut. violent crime has dropped 41% in the past 10 years. property crime 23%. the prison population is about 40% less than it was 10 years ago. it is crime a problem and if so, what can be done about it? >> yes, according to your statistics, crime is down. for people in this state and statistics it does not matter. if they are affected in any way then that is their metric for evaluation. as far as what my opponent is

saying about me on this issue, a lie does not care who tells it. as your congresswoman i voted abroad $15 million in funds to support law enforcement. one of the biggest investments ever. i have brought back community projects to upgrading improve communication systems in the police department new fairfield watertown brookfield police departments. brought hundreds of thousands of dollars back to our police athletic league's to build trust with community. this is a back and forth. this idea that we can incarcerate our way out of a crime problem is so incredibly flawed. we have to build trust with communities. we have to make sure that not only are we supporting our law enforcement offices and giving them the tools training and resources that they need, but we are also making sure that accountability is there. i am the wife of a police officer. my husband has been on the job

for 27 years. i am also the mother of three black sons. i want to make sure that my sons are not afraid of their encounters with police. that has to be part of the conversation. mr. logan has a lot to say on this. when he was a state senator and had the opportunity to vote to support the connecticut state police for hazard pay and raises in their salaries, he voted against it. he is introducing himself to this district and deciding who he wants you to believe he is. i offer you to fact check everything i'm saying. to look at his record and look at the fact that he voted against the connecticut state police when he had the chance so we can say whatever he wants. trying to convince you of something that you know not to be true. but i know how he voted. >> mr. logan, you have one minute. >> very difficult bills that we had to bring. i support increasing. i am consistent in my support of

it. it had to do with the process that democrats here should want when switching the bills before we actually put together a budget. the issue has more to do with the process issue, not my willingness to increase officers pay. we need to have responsible budgeting. the same budget that you are talking about in that year, we passed a bipartisan budget. i think i have done more for the state of connecticut as you have as a congresswoman. a bipartisan budget. we have instituted guardrails against spending caps. volatility cap and these things have allowed us to have multibillion-dollar surplus. getting them to shore up our budget in terms of our pension debt. make sure that we are not doing as much spending as we were before. we have had a great success in terms of my time. we are seeing the results of

that now. >> we appreciate. thank you so much. congresswoman hayes, would you like 30 seconds to respond? >> i am a history teacher. i taught civics. the first job of the legislature is to make the laws of past budget. the fact that you voted on a budget is not specific to your successes as a state legislature you remind me of the kid who is part of a group project and does not do anything but wants credit for the final grade. that is something that everyone did. our state is in the position that it is now because of the federal investment that have come back to the state time and time again for my time in congress. >> thank you. we do have a lot more to get to tonight. the next question is about the border bill. >> mr. logan, immigration is a big issue in this upcoming election and it is important to the people in connecticut. you have mentioned immigration

in the border many times while running for congress. would you have supported the border bill, the one that was proposed but never brought to the house floor and why? if it were to be reintroduced, no matter under which administration, would you support it and further, would you support a comprehensive immigration bill? >> i will start with the last part of your question. yes, i would absolutely support a comprehensive immigration bill we cannot do that until we secure our border. that senate bill, supported by my opponent, that would have brought in 1.8 million illegal immigrants. we will move and transport illegal immigrants to all parts of the country. by goal is to fix illegal immigration. my goal is to fix. first we must have secure

borders. we need someone who will be strong in terms of crime, in terms of illegal immigration. we can do that, but my opponent has shown no desire, no ability, no leadership in washington on the border bill. she has gone with the stick with her record along with the washington democrat leadership. we do not need that. we need someone that will speak independently. we need someone that will be a voice for you in washington. she comes down here and she goes into the community. once it is over she disappears. she is quiet and she just both in line with the democratic leadership. i will work in a bipartisan basis and i will vote for bills that help our community. i will criticize any bill, any legislation that hurts of people regardless if it comes from the republican or democrat side of the aisle. my opponent has shown no ability to do that. the border bill, i am telling

you there is a competing house bill that is out there as well. i am confident that with the right folks down in washington, if we had some true bipartisanship, we could make some gains. we cannot do that with the current congresswoman. she had almost six years to make a difference. she only made the situation worse. it is time for a change. why cannot washington just work together. i had a 97% bipartisan voting record. bringing it down to washington. >> your two minutes is up. how to go to congressman hayes for one minute. >> i want to make clear that i do not come back at election time because i live here and i'm here all the time. after the last campaign saying he would move to the district permanently. i guess he has not gotten around to that yet. you look as a connecticut state senator. he never split without party. he voted with senate republicans all the time. so you can look at that if you would like. on the border, yes, we need to address our immigration system.

we have a broken immigration system. people presented themselves at the border are doing it following the law. we need to do this in a humane way. i can tell you that, yes, i would support the bipartisan bill that was negotiated in the senate. the bill that they asked for. they said the most conservative republican center to negotiate this bill which would have had lessened processing time. increasing judges. donald trump telling them to vote against it in the bill was changed. >> congresswoman hayes, we appreciate your time. next, the question is for you. hurricane milton about to make landfall. the next question has to deal with the role of fema. this is coming from you, dan. >> we are all hoping and praying for the better result as this latest hurricane hits.

we are seeing an increasing number of weather crises especially flooding perhaps because of climate change. do you think that the fema response emergency management agency response by the administration has been adequate what do you think should happen differently if not and in the big picture, do you see connecticut which has had its own flooding in this very district being left out as the money runs out? should congress allocate more money. >> so, yes. one of the things that we did was for the first time in history address climate change for the problem that it is. and the infrastructure bill, we had money for mitigation, resilience, making sure we were proactively dealing with all of these things. by the time fema comes in, a disaster has already happened. under donald trump's entire time as president he lessened or reduced the amount of funding that would go for disaster.

people are talking about the money running out for fema. before we left for congress pushing funding. we knew that with the intensity and severity of storms we would need more money. republicans blocked it. voted against it every single one of them voted against it. did not want additional funding. i know that my opponent will bring this up. as your congresswoman my job is not to post on twitter or take pictures. it is to get people to help that they need. we had this a couple months ago. thanking me for being in constant contact with them and forgetting funding for them in record time. i've continued to do that to come back to those places because that is what people need they need our legislators and lawmakers to do the job that they were elected to deal.

i had already flown out. when i was flown in chicago, the president was on the ground. we worked in lightning speed to make sure that we brought a disaster declaration back to the state. the infrastructure fund already in place had already started to harden our bridges, our roads to make sure that it was not catastrophic. >> congresswoman hayes, thank you very much. we appreciate that the one minute for you, mr. logan for you to discuss fema. >> when you talk about taking pictures and posting on social media, when we had the floods in august of this year, whether it is dan barry other areas, she went to chicago. she stayed in chicago for a

political party. we talked about the leadership. we need true leadership where you can recognize. you are suffering. i met with people, i met with families to see firsthand what was going on. we need someone that will be a leader and understand they need you to be there. that is what we need you to do. my opponent, again, she is more concerned about satisfying the party leadership to put them over the people. she does that over and over again with her voting record. it is time for a change. we need someone to represent the people of the district. >> thank you. would you like to add 30 seconds >> when it comes to storms and predicting storms, republicans want to get rid of the national weather service. at the very basic. when you want to talk about politicizing a storm, let's look

at what the leader of your party is doing when people are actually dying. convincing them not to take fema funds. not to listen, trying to convince them that the administration is not coming to their aid when every republican governor is saying that they are talk about partisanship, it is on that side. >> we do have to stop you there. thank you. we want you both to sit tight for just a moment. we do have to take a quick commercial break. airing live on channel three continues right after this. welcome back to the primetime debate. george logan. we have a number of other questions we want to get to tonight. our next question will be for mr. logan and it will be asked. >> mr. logan, congresswoman hayes has said tonight. this campaign and this election,

both parties nationally put out messages. do you agree, what does that mean? >> i believe that the direction of our nation is absolutely at stake. do we want two more years or four more years of the failed policies from washington? people want to be able to afford to live and work in the district they want the borders to be secured. they want to make sure that we support our allies internationally. they want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to work, to grow and to be happy in our nation. right now, folks are very concerned. they see the liberal left, very left-leaning policies coming out of the washington leadership.

really heading toward socialism. that is where the fear is when they make policies that continue to increase the cost of everything. driving up inflation. when they see the open borders. they see my opponent continuing to tell you over and over again that she is doing a good job. things are good. they are not as bad as they are. you see it with your own eyes. look at the results. we need folks in washington. we need those that will walk across the aisle and deliver. she has not delivered on all the things out are important to you. whether it is affordability, whether it is safety. the education system. we have issues here that need serious, serious attention. focusing on what my opponent has i have gone into new britain. i have gone into meriden. i see what is happening. underreporting. that is why you are listening at

all these statistics. you know what, if you do not report it, we can say that it is not happening. you will live in these communities. you know that these schools are more dangerous than before. he spends more time trying to keep himself out of fights and trouble than he does studying. that needs to change. >> thank you very much. you have 60 seconds to respond. >> you do not even want to go there with the public school system. first of all, for all of your talk, nothing that you said or done is bipartisan. you cannot even acknowledge when something literally as basic facts. no matter what side of the aisle you are on the political affiliation should be able to agree that it should never have happened and it is a disqualifying factor. voting for the person that incited january 6. asking you to turn off your

phone in your camera. voting for donald trump. mike johnson is a great leader. the person who authored the plan to overthrow and not certified the election. none of those things matter that he is talking about if we don't have free and fair elections in a peaceful power. i will not stand for that. i will not stand here and let mr. logan pretend that it is not an issue. >> would you like 30 seconds to respond? >> i condemn all forms of political violence including january 6. including the anti-somatic riots going on here and across the world. including the assassination attempt on a former president. yes i condemn political violence we have an opportunity to change things. my opponent she just cannot help it.

i have told you over and over again, i am here for you. >> thank you. >> i'm here to represent you and i will do that. >> we have a lot to get to tonight. the next question will be coming from suzanne. it is about all of the world conflicts happening right now. >> congresswoman hayes, i would like to know what you feel the united states role is when it comes to conflict specifically israel. a lot of people are on edge right now worried about what will happen in the middle east. what role does the united states play. when it comes to iran and more specifically nuclear weapons. >> so, just like everyone else, i am heartbroken by what is happening. we want this conflict and that we are seeing right now in israel and gaza and now expanding into other countries.

i do believe we have a responsibility to support our allies that are israel. however, what that support looks like matters. how they use that support matters. i think that families of the hostages who have said they want a negotiated cease-fire. they also want a release of all the hostages that have been held i would say moving forward we have to make sure that there is a bath towards these that give self-determination to the palestinians in gaza. the innocent people. >> netanyahu does not care about the hostages. >> please stop the clock. ....